Staycation Reads (More YA)

I went to the coast last weekend and read a couple more YA books. They seem to have all gotten off library hold at the same time! Also I am anxiously awaiting the Tournament of Books longlist so I can get a head start on next year.

Our Way Back to Always (by Nina Moreno) 

This is about Luisa and Sam, who had a falling out in middle school and now reconnect to finish their "before we graduate" list they made when they were 12. This was cute, and I liked the individual arcs of the two main characters. I didn't feel they dealt with the falling out at all, which was odd.  And the "cameos" from a previous book were shoehorned in very awkwardly.  (Like a random character appears and has a heart to heart with one of our characters and it's like who is this? Why is she here? Where did she come from? And the answer is, a different book.) 

Early Departures (by Justin A. Reynolds)

The premise of this was cool: through some magical technology, people can be brought back to life for a few days or weeks to say their earthly goodbyes before they die again. This technology is presented very ominously like, of course this is going to turn out to be a terrible idea and there will be exciting twists. But no, not really. So it's just a bizarre narrative choice. Our "comedian" character isn't very comedic. (At one point he's making jokes about airplane pretzels, like, that is Seinfeld in the 1990s. I refuse to believe he "killed" with this.) I did love the voice of our main character Jamal, and really the entire cast of characters. I also really appreciated the focus was on grief and friendship vs. romance.  And the premise didn't go where I expected but I always enjoy a speculative fiction moment. So thumbs up on this one overall.